The sole purpose of any business is to deliver a seamless and interactive customer experience. This is quite obvious as a satisfied customer equal to a loyal customer that would further lead to improved return on investment.
In the words of Jeff Bezos, “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
The digital user experience can be the sole driver of how good an example your business sets. One can’t go wrong with it!
The following illustration gives an insight into the most exciting business opportunities available.
This 22 percent of the findings show that there is a dire need to implement a digital customer experience strategy that works well at every touchpoint.
Also, according to a study, around 60 percent of customers are willing to pay more for satisfactory customer experience.
If a customer moves from A to Z, it is the businesses’ responsibility to get there by efficiently managing the “B-Y” steps that lie in-between.
Even the minutest of mistakes in making a user experience worthwhile can cost much to the business.
What is Customer Experience all about?
Imagine you going to a bank for undergoing a transaction. If the executive treats you carelessly and keeps you waiting while not making time to acknowledge your requests while idling you through steps, what would your feedback be?
For, of course, you would be dissatisfied and wouldn’t think twice before cursing the bank. Isn’t it? And, why not, when the bank paid no heed to your overall experience with them.
On the other hand, if you are greeted kindly, and your request is instantly acknowledged by navigating you step-by-step till you withdraw the money, wouldn’t it make you a happy customer? Well of course, yes! Also, you would love to come back again and again. Isn’t it?
This is the concept behind the digital customer experience journey as well. In layman’s terms, customer experience is counted on the basis of the quality of interaction between the business and the customer throughout their business relationship.
The better the customer journey, the better the brand image in the end.
Have a look at this graphical depiction that depicts the importance of customer experience to a business.
With that said, let’s move forward and discuss some tips for implementing a superb digital customer experience.
- Understand your Customer Needs
The simple trick is to walk in your customer’s shoes to get an idea about their vision and expectations from your brand.
Next, you need to create steps for a particular digital activity and define guidelines and expectations along with them. Once you have got the hold of the customer expectations, everything else would automatically start falling into place.
- Creating Customer Personas
This is just an addition to the above step that gives you an insight into who your customers are. Building customer personas is the best way out to accomplish customer satisfaction.
You would have to start with creating a customer name and a uniquely identifiable persona.
For example, there is Hannah (27), who is tech-savvy, able to find her way out to what she needs on your website. And, then there is John (46), who would need a helping hand to navigate through the various steps to get to the desired results.
By looking from the perspective of each of the virtually created personals, you would know who your customers are and their respective expectations from you.
- Creating an Emotional Connect
Sometimes a business needs to go the extra mile to make sure their customers are happy. It is like a gesture that assures them that you care!
If you have a loyal customer that misses on one of the customer journey touchpoints, you need to do the unexpected.
The story below might be old but holds significance in making you realize the power of emotions.
Back in 2011, a man booked a last-minute Southwest Airlines’ flight to Denver to see his grandson, one last time. In the midst of heavy traffic, that man was twelve minutes late for the flight. But, the pilot waited for him and postponed the flight. A perfect example of an emotional connection with customers!
- Focus on Getting Customer Feedback
Be it by sending follow-up emails, calling up the customers, or by on-website survey options; feedback would always narrate the truth.
If you think that customers wouldn’t make time for the feedback, don’t be mistaken. Sometimes feedback can tell you things you wouldn’t know otherwise.
The story does not end with feedback. You would have to sit back and analyze where your customer experience fell short of delivering a seamless experience. And, draft ways to mend what seems broken.
- Develop your team to Meet the New Requirements
If you change your business strategy and initiate a customer-centric strategy, your team needs to be trained to complement the new business model.
For example, your customer support should know that they need to do everything possible for a customer’s satisfaction besides being generous to them.
The team needs to understand that they can’t be unkind to a customer even if sometimes the customer is wrong.
Training your manpower and making them adept at customer handling should be a priority. In short, building a responsive, understanding, dedicated, and positive team is your sole responsibility.
You Got your Digital Customer Experience Right the Very First Time!
Yet again, quoting the words of Jeff Bezos, “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”
This is where the essence of digital customer experience lies! You ought to try the customer experience improvement strategy and see your business miraculously generating revenues.
So, get along the above-mentioned steps and get an A+ for your customer experience delivery.
AuthoBio:
Paige Griffin is a seasoned Content Writer at Net Solutions, Los Angeles for 7 years with an expertise in blogging, writing creative and technical copy for direct response markets and promotional advertising for B2B and B2C industries. Born and brought up in New York, Paige holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. She has worked for industries like IT, Product engineering, Lifestyle, among others and written some great insights on technologies like python web development, php web development, and so on. Besides her technical background, she is a poet by heart, who loves to connect with people through a dose of creativity and imagination.
